The science behind the 10-minute brain reset walk | Wendy Suzuki

• What you do with your body impacts your brain.
• Moving your body gives your brain a "bubble bath" of neurochemicals.
• Even 10 minutes of walking can boost your mood significantly.
• Regular exercise strengthens critical brain areas for memory and focus.
• Positive thoughts during movement enhance the benefits of exercise.
• Setting manageable goals and enjoying movement are key to long-term success.

What you do with your body affects your brain.
And what you think with your brain also has an effect on the physiology of your body.
It works both ways.

The bubble bath your brain needs.
Every single time you move your body, including when you're running, you are giving your brain what I like to call a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals.
Those neurochemicals include dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, and endorphins.
And that cocktail of neurochemicals is what is giving the runners their runner's high.
We know that endorphins play a really big part of that.

But here's the good news.
You don't have to be a marathon runner to get this.
In fact, we know that even 10 minutes of walking can significantly improve your mood, decreasing depression, anxiety levels, and improving positive mood states as well.
So that's where the runner's high gets us to.
And it's one of the most powerful things that you can do for your brain today.

Let me dive into that neurochemical bubble bath because it's really the key to understanding exactly how exercise is affecting our brains.
I mentioned several things, several ingredients in that bubble bath that include dopamine and serotonin and noradrenaline and endorphins.
And that's really key to the mood-boosting effects of exercise.
But it also includes what's called growth factors.

Several different growth factors get released with movement, and that is going towards the long-term effects of exercise that can actually help grow and strengthen two key brain areas.
One is the hippocampus, critical for long-term memory.
And the second is the prefrontal cortex, critical for your ability to shift and focus attention.

So how do we understand this?
Every single time you move your body, you are releasing at least a part of that bubble bath.
And that helps us understand how only 10 minutes of walking can improve our mood, decrease depression, decrease anxiety, and as you go up the activity scale to aerobic running, all and everything in between, you are getting those mood effects.

Why?
Because you have higher levels of dopamine and serotonin.
But that's just the short-term effects.
What about long-term effects?
What if you give your brain a bubble bath on a regular basis for a week, month, or several years?
That's when those growth factors kick in.
And what are the growth factors?

Do we know that the growth factors go directly to your hippocampus?
The hippocampus is an extraordinary structure because it is one of the only human brain areas that can grow brand-new brain cells in adulthood.
And those growth factors help the hippocampus grow shiny new hippocampal cells.
And what does that mean?
Your memory is better.

So that is what you get with long-term memory.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the other brain area that benefits in terms of growth and strength is the prefrontal cortex.
Now it's not growing new cells.
Some evidence suggests that the outputs of cells in the prefrontal cortex, called the axons of those cells, perform better, work better with more exercise.

They say that, for example, Serena Williams has really, really well-insulated axons in her prefrontal cortex because of all of that amazing tennis that she's played for a long time.
But those are some of the both immediate and long-term changes that you get with exercise that start with that neurochemical bubble bath.

People often ask me, what is the brain-body connection?
And it is the simple physiological idea.
And so we've talked about moving your body, creating this neurochemical bubble bath that improves your mood and can grow hippocampal brain cells.
That's the body-to-brain connection.

What about the other way?
One of my favorite forms of exercise that I take and I teach is a form of exercise called Tenensati that pairs physical movements from dance, kickboxing, and martial arts with positive spoken affirmations.
It was developed by an amazing fitness instructor named Patricia Moreno.
And there you are giving your brain this bubble bath.

But at the same time, each movement is paired with a positive thought.
For example, when you punch back and forth, we say, "I am strong now."
And imagine a class where the whole class is different moves with different positive affirmations.
I can tell you that the first time I took this class, I walked out of that class feeling strong.
I felt like Wonder Woman, Supergirl all rolled up in one.

Because what you think and what you state verbally is what you start to believe.
And that is why this particular workout is so powerful.
It is taking full advantage of that mind-body connection that we've all heard about.
That's a way to take full advantage of it.

Be more broad in your definition of bringing more movement into your life.
So people always tell me, "You are so good at motivating people to exercise."
But then after I listen to your talk, I just go back home and sit on the couch and watch.
What should I do?

Motivation is key.
And here's what I found in my own life.
As I transitioned from that unbalanced, unhappy, pre-tenure faculty member that I was to a much more active faculty member, I started small.
And I started with things that I already enjoyed, which for me was dance.

I remember when I joined the gym, I decided I wanted to be more active.
And like many people, I joined the gym and I went to a hip-hop dance class.
Okay, I love dance.
I'm a terrible hip-hop dancer.
And I remember coming out of that class saying, "Oh God, that was embarrassing, but still fun."

I enjoyed doing it.
So my tip, my motivational tip for everybody is start small and start with things you already know you like.
If you hate running, don't run.
You don't have to run or start practically.

One of the things I did over the pandemic is I turned my weekly cleaning session into an exercise session.
Have you ever seen that movie Mrs. Doubtfire?
Have you ever tried to do that choreography that Robin Williams did with the vacuum cleaner?
It is hard.
It is a great aerobic workout.

And if you bring that play and that joy to even scrubbing the bathtub, it makes it more fun, enjoyable, and more aerobic.
The other question everybody asked me at the end of my talks is, "That sounds great, I want a neurochemical bubble bath."
But I really want you to tell me what is the least amount of movement that I have to do to get that neurochemical bubble bath.

And here is the answer based on actual scientific studies.
And that is, we know that as little as 10 minutes of walking can improve your mood.
That is getting that bubble bath with the dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins going.
Anybody can do that.
You don't even have to change into your spandex; just go for a walk.
You don't have to change your shoes.

Everybody can do that wherever you live in this world, in this country.
And so that is the minimum.
But that's, I love this.
Start small so everybody can walk and then just add on.
Can you walk a little bit more?
Can you park a little bit farther away?
Can you do another round of shopping with a big cart in Costco?
That's a great way to get exercise as well.

For example, make it fun and practical.
Oh, include your friends as well.
I went to hip-hop; I didn't go to hip-hop dance class.
I went to dance class and found friends that I went to dance class with.
That made it even more enjoyable, even more motivating.

I certainly check goals, and at the beginning of the year, everybody wants to have their beginning-of-the-year goals.
I think those tend to be bound for failure.
Instead of at the beginning of the year, putting all this pressure, I like to set smaller, doable goals that excite me to try them.
That is the key.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of thought.
You know, maybe it's not that, you know those scary classes where you have to lift that tire up and push it across the room, but maybe it is a walk on the shore, a walk to the gym, or a walk around the museum with friends.
Be creative about the ways that you can garden.
That's another thing people think those things don't count.
They all count.
Moving your body, especially outside, all of that counts.

Everybody wonders what is the best time to work out.
And my first answer to that question is always, anytime you could fit it in, fit it in.
Don't let the, "Oh, I'm doing it at this time and you know it's not the best time, so I'm not going to do it," get to you.
Let go of that. Anytime you can fit it in, from morning till night, fit it in.

But if you want to get a little bit more technical about it, here's what I've learned from my studies of the effects of exercise on the brain.
And that is that every time you move your body, you're giving your brain this bubble bath.
What exactly do you get?
You get better mood, you get better performance on tasks that require your prefrontal cortex, which basically means you can shift and focus your attention better.
And something I haven't mentioned yet, your reaction time and response time are better.

And so I think about that.
I've read all the papers, done the research on my own that confirmed all of those immediate things.
And here's what I came up with.
Also, people asked, "Well, when do you work out, Wendy?"
I work out first thing in the morning for several reasons.
One is that it's harder to have other things get in the way of that so it's interrupted less.
And two, I love the idea that after I work out first thing in the morning, I have this brain that is happier, can focus attention better, and that responds quicker.
That's the brain that I want to bring into my workplace first thing in the morning.

And I did notice.
So I will disclose.
When I did this experiment, I was totally enjoying my after-work workout sessions; so I would reward myself, as many people do, and go to the gym after work.
And I loved it.
But as I got into the research and I switched my research from memory to the effects of exercise on the brain, I thought, hmm, let me give this a try.

And I'm not going to lie.
It was painful to switch to first thing in the morning exercise.
I was sleepy.
I couldn't follow the classes because I was half asleep in class.
It was two weeks of pain before I got used to the new schedule.

Then once I got used to it, I found that I could focus attention even longer in my day.
For my whole life, I've always worked best first thing in the morning.
I'm a morning person.
And so that morning good work time got longer when I started and got used to that early morning workout.

And you might say, "Well, I'm not a morning person, Wendy."
I totally get it.
Try it.
I love to advocate for personal experimentation.
You know the science.
Now that you're giving your brain a bubble bath, it's going to make your focus work better, it's going to improve your mood.
What are you going to apply in your life for how your life works?

That's how I applied it to mine, and I like to work out in the morning.
You apply it to yours and let me know how it works out.

So many of us use caffeine.
I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'm a regular tea drinker.
And I think that to switch your exercise regimen goes beyond just the use of coffee or trying to use it to get yourself up.
It's really shifting your circadian clock, getting your body used to movement first thing in the morning.
That's what was so painful for those first two weeks that I tried it.

So it really is being disciplined.
If you want to wake up earlier, you need to go to sleep earlier.
And that is the hard part.
You know, there's always one more Netflix episode to watch, and you think, "Oh, it won't do any harm," but it will.
So it's shifting that circadian clock and really sticking to it.

I think, yeah, you can use caffeine as a crutch, but I think the sleep change and the kind of timing change in your life, and getting a handle on that, and what again works well for you is the most important formula.
There's a lot of data on the idea that late-night workouts, I mean, they could benefit your body and you're still getting that neurochemical bubble bath.

But endorphins are not the best thing to help you fall asleep.
And so, you know, you need time to cool down before you go to sleep.
I experienced this myself.
I never, I never am able to go to sleep after I give an evening lecture.
The later, the worse it is for me.
I need several hours to come back down.

And even though I usually go to bed at around 9, 9:30, if I'm giving a talk at 6 or 7, it takes me several hours to calm down and get into that restful state.
And that is just energy levels, that is your fight or flight response coming online, increasing that adrenaline and cortisol in your body.
And you can't go to sleep with that level of that kind of neurochemical and hormone in your system.
It simply takes more time to go to sleep.

This is another situation where that personal experiment on yourself is notable.
Journal about what works for you.
You know, every single time I give a talk at 6 or 7, I need several hours.
I'm not going to get a good sleep.
So do not schedule an early morning big important thing to do because I' gonna need to sleep in the next day.
Find that for you.

Journaling is great to notice those trends in yourself, but self-experimentation, knowing some of the science behind it, can be a very powerful tool to shift your life in the way that you want it to go.

Here are my two motivations, and I'm a nerd, so I have neuroscience motivations.
Motivation number one.
I love this idea of giving my brain a bubble bath of great neurochemicals first thing in the morning.
I know it's benefiting my brain, and I love the idea that part of those neurochemicals are growth factors.

Because my favorite brain structure, the hippocampus, I know is getting bigger and fatter and fluffier every single time that I work out.
Why is that important?
It's because the hippocampus is one of the most sensitive brain areas to aging, and it starts to lose its connections.
And I am motivated by making my own hippocampus as big and fat and fluffy as I can.

So that even if I get dementia, which I have in my family history, that is going to take longer for that dementia to affect my memory.
Why?
Because I made it big and fat and fluffy with my morning workouts.

There are so many different brain benefits for exercise, almost too many to talk about.
We've talked about the benefit long-term for the hippocampus.
It grows new hippocampal brain cells, making it big and fat and fluffy.
We've talked about the beneficial effects of exercise on the prefrontal cortex, another brain area very susceptible to aging, also increasing.

Probably not brain cells, but the support cells, the glia cells, seem to be benefited by exercise, and certainly, the functions of the prefrontal cortex benefit from exercise.
Mood is beneficial; motivation is.
I can't point to the specific brain area that is important for motivation, but that positive habit that you create as you do regular exercise is a huge benefit for aging.
Just getting that positive habit into your life.

Those are my top how many did I name?
4. Hippocampal function, memory, prefrontal cortex, focus, mood, and motivation.
All things that are benefiting from your regular exercise.
Support the channel.
Join the Big Think members community where you get access to videos early and ad-free.